IT IS NOT ENOUGH

Growing up, I spent many a Saturday afternoon at church going to and coming from confession. It was standard operating procedure for a sinner like me. At least I had come to believe I was a great sinner. And maybe I was: good at sinning. I was surely bad at repentance, or at least bad at changing my way of life. My confession over those years hardly ever varied -- fought with my brothers and sisters, disobeyed my parents, told a few lies. And for that I was destined, if not for hell should I not go to confession before death, at least for purgatory, confession or no. It was all so simple back then.

It was also all so confusing. I mean, I never did believe that I was in the same category of sinner as the local Mafia Bosses who were also members of the church. But I did believe that communion without confession was a no-no. And since I served mass every Sunday,  I wanted to receive every Sunday. But since I also sinned every day in-between, the Saturday trek to church was a regular occurrence for me.

Back then confession lines were long with sinners just like me. The priest confessor must have been bored out of his skull. I know I was years later when I sat on the other side of the confession screen. Today those lines are short and almost non-existent even in those "high" Episcopal churches that have regularly scheduled confession times.

Today we sophisticates believe that we need not go to confession, that we especially do not need to confess our sins to any priest who is just as sinful we are. Why all we need is a direct link to the One True Forgiver of Sins and S/He is always listening anyway. Maybe so. But the fatal flaw today, and even back then, still remains. And that flaw has two sides to it. First, we need to take responsibility for our sins and not make excuses. Yes, I fought with my brothers and sisters, but they often started it. Yes, I didn't mean to disobey my parents, or so I said. Of course I did or else I would not have disobeyed them.

Second, we must be serious about resolving to do better in so far as it lies in us to do better. It is not enough to say a General Confession. It is not enough to simply say, I’m sorry, God, for all my sins." I need to name them, write them down, take a good look at them - and maybe even verbally state them to a priest, face up or behind a screen anonymously - without trying to justify why I did what I did. That is not easy.

And it does not get easier as we grow older and wiser and even more aware of our sinfulness. In fact, it becomes more difficult because it demands even more humility. It takes a truly humble person to admit sinfulness, specific, no-holds-barred, it-was-my-fault-and-only my-fault sinfulness.

It also takes a recognition that none of this can be done without the grace of God who always forgives. It is certainly much easier to confess our sinfulness when we know ahead of time that we are forgiven.

We are all sinners, you and I. Always will be. It is not enough, never enough, just to accept the reality of that and go on. We must do something about it. And that first something is to start naming those sins. Then we can start doing something about them.